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2:05 p.m. - 2013-01-31
Listening to the wind blow.

Trying again. Posted briefly the other night but as it was about 2:30am I wandered off topic, badly. So I junked it. Fricken wolf moon gets me every time. Two nights of prowling around the house with my brain running in 29 more directions than usual. (My usual is about 5-6 topics all fighting for attention with a few other things mumbling from the sidelines.) However the moon has phased out and I can start again. Besides, I'd written about my particolored underpants and really who needs to know? Not that I have anything else more exciting to say, but whatever.

January thaw is here. All the snow is gone. My office window has been open for two days. Mick is going all Chicken Little because winter will be back tonight. I tried to assure him this changing weather with chill to thaw to chill again is entirely normal for late January but if my guy doesn't have something he can't do anything about to fret and fume over then he's miserable. Oy, the Irish. Mick's inability to accept reality and deal is the only real bone of contention between us anymore. He fusses, he grumbles, he stalks around and wastes a ton of energy being upset because things are NOT supposed to go that way!!! Nevermind that they have, there must be the requisite frothing and angry, affronted complaints about how entirely WRONG this thing was. It was never, ever, ever supposed to go like that! Why did (insert minor glitch) happen? WHY??? How dare it? On and on and on. Even after I've swept up the broken glass or gotten the glitch otherwise sorted Mick's still fuming over how it shouldn't have happened in the first place. Um, sweetheart? It did happen and it's all better now, can we move on, please? Nope.

Look, I do understand Mick's control issues. The randomness of Life scares him shitless. Mick likes to think there's order and reason. It's why he loves conspiracy theories. Even the idea there's nefarious goings-on, the world is secretly run by a few shadowy rich guys (who are Masons, of course) and everything from the Dust Bowl of the 1930s to Hostess Twinkies going bankrupt to the fall of the Berlin Wall were all made to happen deliberately with an overarching master plan behind them, well, it's comforting to Mick. No disaster is too large or small to ever be an accident. Or the result of short-sighted thinking. Or bad luck. Nope. In Mick's view somebody planned it that way.

For instance 'Star Trek' wasn't just a goofy sci-fi TV show. 'Star Trek' was the brainchild of the Rand Corporation. See, the idea was to get the gullible, hippy types like me to become accustomed to the notion of a planetary government. 'Star Trek' was the first salvo shot by the New World Order. Raise a generation or two of dopes who think the future naturally leads toward a unified Earth and it will be soooo much easier when the shadowy rich guys move in for the kill. Pacified by the kumbaya utopian vision set up by 'Star Trek' of a happy, happy Earth where everyone gets along and we've become a race of knowledge seekers only interested in expanding our circle of friends it will be all the easier for the shadowy guys to put the yoke of servitude and slavery on our necks when they take over.

No, I'm not kidding. My poor mannie actually finds comfort in the idea we are all destined to become inmates in some vast planetary-wide concentration camp. It's more soothing to him than accepting the true nature of things in that Shit Happens. Windows break, people get sick and die, governments collapse under the freight of greed and ineptitude, kids prefer video games and internet porn over building yurts and voluntarily mowing the lawn, men get afraid their dicks won't stand up so they beat their wives and kids and hoard automatic weapons to prove how virile they are, Sarah Palin gets another job, acid-washed denim makes a comeback. Terrible, awful stuff happens all the time and the idea that the Wheel of Misfortune might spin up Mick's number at any moment just paralyzes him with fear of the future. Better to believe there's some agency of doom at work. Far better to be the victim of intentional cruelty with a plan than being some poor shlub run over in the street by some random dickwad on a cell phone. A victim of being in the wrong place at the right time. Chance. Kismet. Shit Happens.

Pointing out the logic gaps and faulty reasoning of his theories does nothing. Nor does showing him that his belief in this malign fairytale is exactly the same as the hardcore religious believe in their dogma. In Mick's world the Masons and Bilderbergs run things just as completely as Jesus and Allah run things for the holy-rollers. And the reason they cling to their fervent beliefs comes from the same place...fear. Whether it's God or the members of Skull and Bones the idea of someone having a firm hand on the rudder of fate is a relief.

Thus Mick is so vested in the comfort of there being a Plan that the slightest deviation from the rules freaks him out. There aren't supposed to be thunderstorms in January! The cable shouldn't be out! No e-coli in the spinach! Liam Neeson shouldn't smile ever! There's ONE right way to do things, all life is bound by the same exact laws of reason and certainty, always. So when the milk spills, the lock jams, the guy in the next lane runs the red, it's nigh on intolerable to my dear man. HE does things right! HE follows the rules! HE is a good guy and deserving of living a life were everything is smooth as buttah for his devotion to living the right way. When things go fubar it shakes his faith, it makes him afraid that following the rules just isn't enough to ward off bad luck and randomness and he gets angry.

I understand it, but, man, it's tiring to live with.

I am NOT holding myself up as morally or intellectually superior. Honest. I sort of admire Mick's faith in his rules. At least he has faith in something. Me? The stupidly wasteful pain of my life has convinced me there's nothing. No God. No Plan. Nothing but 7 billion people on this planet each certain that he or she is THE star of the show and any and all choices they make are the right ones. Be you an insurance actuary or a mass murderer everything you choose to do is justified by your own understanding of your entitlement and the rules.

I've made some truly horrible choices. Always because I had my reasons, because at the time I honestly believed it was the right thing to do. Or the only choice I could make given the circumstances. 5, 10 years from now I'll look back at what I'm doing today and wonder what the hell was I thinking? But at 50 I'm starting to understand that this is what everyone does at any given time. Most people do their best and even those who know they're behaving badly think their means justify the ends. We're all bumbling along trying to be okay. Life is just fine.